Movement is not just something we do—it is how we connect, understand, and participate in life as it unfolds.

Dr. Rebecca J. Lloyd is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa and an internationally recognized scholar in phenomenology, physical education and physical activity across the lifespan. Her work explores how enhanced movement awareness may deepen a meaningful sense of connection to ourselves, others, and the world around us. She is co‑developer of the Function2Flow model and Motion‑Sensing Phenomenology, and a leading voice in advancing relational, movement‑based approaches to learning, teaching, and engagement.

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Full Biography: Dr. Rebecca J. Lloyd is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, an internationally recognized scholar in phenomenology in physical education and physical activity across the lifespan, and a Training and Mentoring Lead with the Brain‑Heart Interconnectome Project.

Her research draws attention to how enhanced movement awareness may become a means to deeply connecting with ourselves, others, and the world around us, opening possibilities for both practical engagement and meaningful, reflexive understanding. Through this deepened attentiveness to movement, her work expands embodiment scholarship by foregrounding the power of expressive movement—or e‑motion—as central to human experience. She shifts attention from the objective, subjective or intersubjective body to movement as a means of sensing, expressing, and relating through action and interaction in everyday life. In this way, movement can be attended to in many forms—from global movement, such as moving through space or changing position, to more subtle moments in how we relate through shifts in posture, gesture, the degree of tension versus relaxation we carry, and the pace and quality of our breath.

She is co‑developer of the Function2Flow (F2F) model and Motion‑Sensing Phenomenology (MSP), a distinctive research methodology concerned with researching living experience with an animate consciousness through careful attention to posture, gesture, kinaesthetic feeling, and relational movement. Supported through her SSHRC‑funded program of research, this work has progressively traced a movement from individual awareness (IntraAction), to relational and interpersonal connection (InterAction), and more recently toward understanding movement as a community-oriented phenomenon (ExtraAction). Through this work, Dr. Lloyd contributes to forms of research and pedagogy that deepen awareness of movement and reveal meaning within even the most familiar actions.

Dr. Lloyd’s work brings together research, teaching, mentorship, and international collaboration and leadership. She is a highly sought‑after keynote and invited speaker, with engagements across Canada and internationally, and her scholarship demonstrates how everyday movements can become moments of heightened awareness, connection, and aliveness as they are happening, opening pathways for deeper engagement with ourselves, others, and the world across the lifespan.

Selected Keynote & Invited Engagements

A highly sought‑after keynote and invited speaker, Dr. Lloyd’s work has been shared internationally across leading conferences and institutions, including:

• International Conference on Phenomenological Pedagogy (ICPP), Shenzhen University, China
• International Human Science Research Conference (IHSRC), United States
• Jennifer Wall Keynote Address, McGill University, Canada
• LIFE Research Institute General Meeting, Canada 

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Areas of Expertise

• Phenomenology in physical education and physical activity
• Motion‑Sensing Phenomenology (MSP) and animate consciousness
• Function2Flow (F2F) model and relational movement practices
• Movement awareness and relational engagement across the lifespan
• Physical education, teacher education
• Embodied, Active, InterActive, ExtraActive/Community Learning
• Active aging education and community-based movement practices 
• Teacher education and embodied learning

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Professional Engagement

Dr. Rebecca J. Lloyd welcomes opportunities for engagement through speaking, research collaboration, and graduate supervision. Please contact her directly through her University of Ottawa email.

Research Projects

• The InterActive for Life & International Council on Active Aging Partnership Project: A Function2Flow Inquiry into Joyful Programs & Experiences of Active Aging Education. Principal Investigator. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For more information about the Project, click here.
• The Inter-Active for Life Project: Exploring sustained and sustaining movement practices through the interdisciplinary Function2Flow model (2017-2022). Principal Investigator. Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada – Insight Grant. For more information about the IA4L research project, click here.
• Moving to learn and learning to move: A phenomenological inquiry into movement function, feeling, form and flow consciousness within the ‘JungleSport’ school-based program (2010 – 2013). Principal Investigator. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For more information about the Moving to Learn and Learning to Move research project, click here.

Publications (ORCID)

Rebecca in action